Compressed air junkie

I finally visited Pasir Ris beach at low tide – I’m not much of a low-tide walker, preferring instead the weightless-ness of scuba diving, but Pasir Ris, for all it being a “developed” park, still held many wonders.

Our organiser for the walk.

The first thing we noticed as we hit the beach was the greenness of the inter-tidal area. Seagrasses mixed with the green alga Ulva were common around the rock bunds. Here and there, as busy as bees, were various snails, worms and hermit crabs, getting on with life, eating (or being eaten), making out or making eggs, and generally trying to run away from the big lumbering behemoths trampling on their turf.

Scattered amongst the green Ulva seaweed, hermit crabs!

Green, green grass of Pasir Ris!

Snails gliding over the green mass of seagrass and weeds.

Even with eight legs, this octopus couldn’t get away from the paparazzi!

The seastars too seemed very active today, although how they co-ordinate so many feet to move so fast, is still beyond me. But I suppose having many legs is better than just two, as we encountered the remnants of the last visitor to these shores.

A “biscuit” seastar looking quite appetising as we were getting hungry!

Residents of the two-legged variety were also out in force, despite the gathering storm clouds, preying on the local shore life. Many a worm or marine snail sur-”combed” these predators.

The approaching storm clouds did not deter the beach combers from scouring the inter-tidal area.

I was surprised by the fairly large amount of rubbish on the shores, comprising mainly plastic bags. One wonders where they came from? No surprise were the fishing lines, which criss-crossed the inter-tidal zone like a spider’s web. What makes fishermen think that their line will not get snagged on rocks or other things when they fish from shore is a bit of a mind-boggler.

Shufen and Kevin providing a reference to the amount of rubbish we saw. Lots of plastic bags.

Cheng Puay trying to gather up loose fishing line that criss-crossed the inter-tidal area like a spider’s web.

Alas, the impeding storm forced us to cut short our visit (along we had been there for almost two and a half hours already), so we made a hasty retreat to Changi Village for a well-earned treat of carrot cake and nasi lemak.

More pictures here.